Another Dem won't back speaker

Three Democratic candidates for Congress in recent days have signaled that they would not support Nancy Pelosi for speaker should her party keep the majority.

Roy Herron, who’s facing an uphill battle to replace Democrat Rep. John Tanner in Tennessee, was the latest Democrat to buck his party’s leadership, declaring Monday night he would not support Pelosi for speaker. Herron follows Rep. Bobby Bright, a conservative Alabama Democrat, who has also promised to vote against Pelosi for speaker if Democrats retain the House majority – he released an advertisement Tuesday saying that his constituents don’t want a liberal running the House, doubling down on his promise not to vote for Pelosi. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), meanwhile, believes there will be resistance to Pelosi if Democrats incur heavy electoral losses Nov. 2.

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This by no means represents a revolt against Pelosi. But more and more incumbent Democrats and challengers are distancing themselves from the speaker and the party’s agenda in Washington during an election year. Herron went as far as to say that Pelosi and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) are “too extreme.”

Herron, who’s in a tough race with Republican Stephen Fincher in the state’s rural northwest corner, told a crowd at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., Monday night that he wouldn’t vote for Pelosi for speaker — or for John Boehner as speaker, for that matter.

“He did, in fact, say last night that he would not support Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner for speaker of the House,” spokesman Brandon Puttbrese told POLITICO Tuesday morning. “He would vote for a candidate that is more centrist, that represents the district, someone who closer shares the views and values of the district.”

DeFazio was less explicit about a potential challenge to Pelosi’s leadership, though he strongly signaled that some Democrats would want a change if there’s an electoral wipeout. Penny Dodge, a DeFazio aide, said that the senior Democrat thinks that “any time you suffer big losses in business or politics, you need to step back and ask if we need to make some changes.”

Some Democrats are simply hedging a bit ahead of the election. Rep. Scott Murphy, an upstate New York Democrat, also declined to endorse Pelosi in a meeting with the Albany Times Union’s editorial board.

“We’ll see. We’ll see what happens when the election’s over, and we’ll look at the leadership. I have not been involved in a leadership election or that process,” Murphy said, according to the newspaper’s website. “I think that I haven’t spent any time working on that issue. I’m really focused on getting through this election season and figuring out where we go from there.”

Pelosi aides didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

And not all incumbents are scared. Pelosi’s name did grace a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee invitation for a fundraiser at Alonzo Mourning’s mansion in Coral Gables, Fla. Pelosi, according to an aide, worked hard to raise money for the event but didn’t make the cross-country flight to south Florida. The fundraiser was expected to net $1 million for Democrats.